Three Times Sheldon and Amy Never Met and One Time They Did
by phantagrae
Summary: A few near misses and one sure hit. Thanks, as always, to FoxPhile for her awesome beta work!


**Prologue**

**February 2009**

**Glendale**

Amy Farrah Fowler updated her profile on the most recent dating website she'd decided to try. It was almost time for her annual stab at dating to appease her mother, and she was steeling herself for the doubly disheartening results—either no matches would come up, or the ones that did would be barely tolerable.

She made herself a mug of hot chocolate and clicked through some profiles to see if the website would match her up with anyone interesting. There were some good-looking men, but most of them were interested in only the most mundane pursuits.

She could wait. She'd waited before. She needed to do some shopping in the morning, so she decided to call it a night.

**Pasadena**

Sheldon Lee Cooper put the finishing touches on his latest paper. He knew it would be well-received and he was suitably proud of himself. Maybe he'd even send a copy of it to his mother.

He sipped his chamomile tea as he contemplated his upcoming trip to San Francisco. He and his friends were planning to go to a conference there and he planned to show his paper to Dr. George Smoot. If someone like Smoot could win a Nobel Prize, surely Sheldon was on the right path, himself.

He was also proud not to have been distracted with all of the ups and downs Leonard seemed to be experiencing in his relationships lately. Penny, Dr. Vartabedian, Penny, and who knew who else was due to come down the pike. What a waste of energy.

He saved his document to his flash drive, shut down his computer and prepared for bed.

* * *

><p><strong>April 2009<strong>

Sheldon pushed a shopping cart through the aisles at the drugstore, stocking up on toothpaste, deodorant and other toiletries.

"Leonard, they're out of my dental floss—unwaxed, mint-flavored ribbon," he commented, scanning the shelves more intently to make sure he hadn't overlooked it.

"Get this one," Leonard said, allowing only a tinge of exasperation to color his voice as he pointed out an alternative. "It's the same style."

"It's a different brand," Sheldon stated firmly, raising an eyebrow at Leonard for even suggesting it.

"But it's the same…never mind." Leonard shook his head and walked away. "I'm going to get my allergy medicine."

"Okay," Sheldon replied distractedly, still pawing through the different types of dental floss. At last he gave up and walked on down the aisle, following Leonard toward the medications. "Leonard, can we go to the other CVS and see if they have my dental floss?"

Amy turned the corner into the dental supply aisle, reaching for her usual brands of toothpaste and mouthwash. She stopped in front of the dental floss shelf and sighed in exasperation. Someone had pushed the packages around, knocking them over and generally making a mess of the display. How was she supposed to find the one she wanted—unwaxed, mint-flavored ribbon style? She straightened it up just enough to find what she was looking for and went on to the feminine hygiene products.

While he waited his turn at the register, Sheldon perused the cookies and candy bars in the nearby display. He sighed at the cynical ploy, designed to tempt hungry, tired shoppers into impulse purchases. It was working on him. He reached out and grabbed a package of mini Nutter Butters and added it to his basket. Soon he was following Leonard out to the car, already opening the cookies.

Amy walked up to the register and looked through the snack display, choosing a package of mini Oreos. She knew she was giving in to marketing ploys but she didn't care. Sometimes a girl just needs some Oreos.

* * *

><p><strong>June 2009<strong>

"Please, Leonard," Sheldon pleaded excitedly. "Can we go see the koalas first?"

"Why can't we see the polar bears first?" Raj asked as the four of them exited Leonard's car.

"Or the sharks?" Howard put in. "Maybe Sheldon will fall in and we won't have to hear about koalas all afternoon."

Sheldon scowled at him, his bottom lip protruding ever so slightly.

"Why don't we start with the monkeys and work our way around from there?" Leonard said, diplomatically. "We'll see the koalas soon enough and the polar bear exhibit is in the middle."

"Don't forget the shark tank…" Howard muttered under his breath.

Amy parked her car and walked toward the zoo entrance, looking for the young man she was supposed to meet. The dating website had finally sent her a match and the two of them had emailed briefly, making a date to go to the zoo. Amy felt it was a reasonably safe, public place to meet and it was also a good way to assess the intelligence and conversation skills of a potential date.

She had no illusions about this man being any different from the many others she had met on her annual dates. He had a degree, even if it was in literature, and, judging by his profile picture, he seemed to be relatively good looking, in an absent-minded professor sort of way—a pleasant face, glasses, blond hair slightly askew. But otherwise, she wasn't really impressed.

She spotted him in the crowd near the ticket booth and she approached him.

"Excuse me, I'm Amy Farrah Fowler, you're Bradley Fortenberry," she began confidently. "I'm here because my mother and I have agreed that I will date at least once a year. Before this goes any further, you should know that all forms of physical contact, up to and including coitus, are off the table."

The scruffy blond man blinked back at her and finally nodded.

"That's fine," he said. He handed her a ticket and led her through the entrance.

"Shall we start with the monkey house?" he suggested. "It's right over there."

"I'm familiar with the layout of the exhibits," she remarked. "I think I'd rather start with the 'Animals of Australia' exhibit and save the primate exhibit for last. I do research with various primate species and I have developed a more than professional fondness for them."

"Sure," Bradley agreed and followed Amy's lead.

Amy was impressed at Bradley's seeming ability to talk non-stop, but not impressed with his choice of subject matter. While she was very fond of the works of Chaucer, she wasn't necessarily interested in all literature, and most especially not interested in the arcane works that Bradley apparently loved to expound upon.

Amy paused to enjoy the peaceful koalas, munching on eucalyptus leaves, temporarily tuning out Bradley's incessant chatter, until he insisted that they go and see the sharks in the aquarium.

Sheldon and his friends watched the monkeys cavorting through their enclosure for several minutes, amused at their playful antics. Sheldon read the exhibit tag out loud as if he hadn't read it out loud on every previous trip to the zoo.

"Sheldon…" Leonard sighed.

"I'm just trying to see if they've updated it from the last time. I want to know more about the monkeys, but it's just information about their natural habitat and all that. Same stuff…" He looked around the enclosure to see if there was anything new to observe.

"If it's the same, then why do you need to read it to us?" Howard grumped.

"Well, how do I know whether or not you remember it?" Sheldon replied.

"I didn't remember it," Raj offered mildly.

"Shut up," Howard muttered.

At last they made their way to the koala area and Sheldon immediately settled down, staring dreamily at the small grey animals, perched in eucalyptus trees in the enclosure.

"He's doing it again," Raj whispered to Howard, pointing gleefully at Sheldon's rapt expression and sweet smile.

Howard giggled a little and moved a few steps away to pull out his phone and take a picture of Sheldon staring at the koalas.

"Kripke will get a kick out of this," Howard said quietly as he sent the picture to Barry Kripke, who would make the most of teasing Sheldon about it. Raj looked over Howard's shoulder, giggling like a schoolboy.

"Come on, guys," Leonard said, shepherding them onward. They continued onward to the aquarium.

As Amy and Bradley entered the primate area, Amy found herself taking over the conversation from Bradley, making him listen as she expounded on primate behavior, knowledge gleaned from years of experimentation in her addiction studies involving various types of monkeys.

She found his company bearable but his conversation tedious, and she was determined to bring the date to an end once she'd had her fill of the primate exhibit.

Leonard and the guys emerged from the snack bar, each munching on a churro, heading toward the exit.

Sheldon was happy to have finally talked his friends into taking him to the zoo. It had been months since he'd been there and none of them would take him on their own. It was hard to find a time when they were all free and all willing to go to the zoo. He looked back longingly, wondering how the koalas were doing.

Amy and Bradley entered the snack bar and Amy allowed Bradley to buy her a churro. He seemed surprised that she wanted only water to drink, but didn't try to suggest anything more.

They sat at a table and had their snacks, with Bradley finally speaking up again.

"Well, Miss Fowler, I've enjoyed our afternoon together. Your knowledge of the primates was very extensive. You remind me of the heroine in a novel I just read…"

"Thank you, Mr. Fortenberry," Amy interrupted, unwilling to listen to him talk more about random books she had never read and would probably never read. "It's getting late and I'd like to go ahead and go home now. It was nice meeting you."

"Oh," he replied, blinking at her. "Would you like to meet again sometime? I'll be giving a lecture on…"

"No, thank you," she said bluntly. "I've satisfied my annual date obligation to my mother. I've no need to continue. I'll be going now. Good day." She stood and slung her purse across her body, offering him a nod as she headed toward the exit.

* * *

><p><strong>November 2009<strong>

Sheldon arrived early for the lecture in order to secure the prime seat—directly in front of the speaker, close enough to read his facial expressions, but not so close as to be in danger of flying spittle. Some of these guest lecturers could get pretty excited. Sheldon had gotten splattered once and had to flee the lecture to go wash his face. He wasn't letting that happen again.

Once he was comfortable in what he felt was the best location, he hunkered down to wait for it to begin.

Amy entered the lecture hall with a small group of colleagues from UCLA. They had driven up to CalTech together and she had pretended that it meant they considered her a friend. That she had offered to drive and save them all the gas and frustration of driving in evening rush hour traffic was beside the point. They had agreed to ride with her.

She wasn't necessarily all that interested in physics, but the lecture was also about how life evolved on Earth, and that interested her. It was tangentially related to her studies in neurobiology, and it gave her a chance to do something other than sit home alone.

She and her colleagues began looking for a group of seats together, but were only able to find three, not four, so Amy found a seat alone in the middle of the hall. Sitting alone would make it easier for her to concentrate on the lecture and to take notes without being distracted.

She sighed deeply and made herself comfortable in her chair, waiting for the lecture to begin.

Sheldon listened intently to the speaker, making mental notes about the things he felt the man got wrong. He was planning to talk to him after the lecture in order to set him straight on these points. Boy, was this going to be fun! Leonard and the others hadn't wanted to come. They thought it would be more fun to stay home and watch Babylon 5. Idiots.

As the lecture came to an end, the audience rose to their feet to offer the speaker a standing ovation. Sheldon snorted in exasperation and remained seated. Hadn't they noticed the fallacies in the man's theories? He waited impatiently while the crowd began to move up the stairs and out of the room, before making his way down to the stage. He couldn't wait to set the guy straight.

Amy stood with the clapping crowd, not because she found the lecture worthy of such an ovation, but because she wanted to find her friends…well, colleagues. Unfortunately, she was too short to see past all the bodies. She wanted to go down to the stage to ask the speaker a few questions, but she didn't want to get separated from the others.

She could see that someone had made his way down to the stage and was already engaged in an animated conversation with the speaker. As she finally pushed her way to the aisle, intending to try to get down to the stage herself, one of her co-workers was there and took her by the arm, leading her out into the hallway to join the others.

"Amy, we'd like to get back to campus as soon as possible," Cheryl began. "We wanted to hit the Scholar before happy hour is over."

"Oh…okay," Amy agreed, casting a last look back at the empty hall. The speaker seemed to have moved away from the lectern and she figured she'd missed her chance. She wasn't sure if Cheryl was issuing an invitation, but maybe she could find out while they drove back to UCLA.

* * *

><p><strong>May 2010<strong>

Sheldon rode in the car with his two blackmailing friends. He knew this was a waste of time, but it was the only way to avoid the possibility of a dirty sock lurking in his apartment.

Dating site matches were based on nothing but hokum, but even if their algorithms were somehow mathematically sound, who on earth could possibly be a match for someone as brilliant and intellectually superior as himself?

He'd known plenty of female scientists, both reasonably brilliant and stultifyingly misguided, but he had never considered dating any of them. He'd never considered dating anyone. What would be the point?

He'd seen the way Leonard, Howard, and Raj had wasted their time and energy chasing women, most of whom didn't seem to want to be caught, at least not by any of them. And if they did end up dating a woman, it inevitably led to random coitus and an eventual break-up. Just more energy wasted on prurient pursuits that could have been devoted to the pursuit of science.

Troglodytes.

"In a few minutes," he began as the three of them entered the coffee shop, "when I gloat over the failure of this enterprise, how would you prefer I do it—the standard, 'I told you so', the classic, 'Neener-neener' or just my normal look of haughty derision?" He demonstrated with a condescending shake of his head.

"You don't know we're wrong yet," Raj replied.

"Haughty derision it is," Sheldon answered, repeating the expression.

Amy saw three men enter the coffee shop together and she frowned as she recognized one of them as her date. Why would he have brought friends to a date? What was he expecting to happen? She took a deep breath and stepped up to him. Time to get this annual ritual over with, beginning with her standard disclaimer.

"Excuse me, I'm Amy Farrah Fowler, you're Sheldon Cooper," she began.

"Hello, Amy Farrah Fowler," Sheldon said, apologetically. "I'm sorry to inform you that you've been taken in by unsupportable mathematics designed to prey on the gullible and the lonely. Additionally, I'm being blackmailed with a hidden dirty sock."

He wanted to nip this foolishness in the bud by informing this poor girl of the truth of dating sites.

"If that was slang, I'm unfamiliar with it. If it was literal, I share your aversion to soiled hosiery," she said, wondering if there was some new lingo she wasn't cool enough to understand. "In any case, I'm here because my mother and I have agreed that I will date at least once a year."

She waited to see if he would walk out, as some men had done, or if he would go through with the date. She was surprised by his reply.

"Interesting. My mother and I have the same agreement about church."

"I don't object to the concept of a deity, but I'm baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance," she said frankly.

Sheldon nodded at her perceptive comment. "Well, then, you might want to avoid east Texas," he said considerately.

"Noted," she replied. "Now before this goes any further, you should know that all forms of physical contact up to and including coitus are off the table."

Sheldon considered her for a moment. She was different from so many women he had met. And the fact that she was not seeking coitus, or any other germ-laden form of physical contact, was a pleasant surprise. He was further surprised at the words he heard coming from his own mouth.

"May I buy you a beverage?"

"Tepid water, please." She offered him a perfunctory smile and followed him to the counter. She wasn't sure if this date would be any better than what she had become used to, but she was already intrigued. She liked the way he spoke. She liked the way he looked. And she liked that he didn't seem to be all put off by her parameters for the date.

As they waited for the server to take their order, Sheldon found himself stealing a glance at this interesting person. The fact that she didn't want coffee somehow pleased him. She wasn't the usual coffee shop denizen, full of caffeine and self-importance. Could it be that he had stumbled upon someone as interesting as himself? In the space of the few minutes they had conversed, he had already found her fascinating and he wasn't sure why.

Still, he would never admit it to Wolowitz and Koothrappali. He'd already forgotten they were in the room.


End file.
